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When I began Schwartzreport my purpose was to produce an entirely fact-based daily publication in favor of the earth, the inter-connectedness and interdependence of all life, democracy, equality for all, liberty, and things that are life-affirming. Also, to warn my readers about actions, events, and trends that threaten those values. Our country now stands at a crossroads, indeed, the world stands at a crossroads where those values are very much at risk and it is up to each of us who care about wellbeing to do what we can to defend those principles. I want to thank all of you who have contributed to SR, particularly those of you who have scheduled an ongoing monthly contribution. It makes a big difference and is much appreciated. It is one thing to put in the hours each day and to do the work for free, but another to have to cover the rising out-of-pocket costs. For those of you who haven’t done so, but read SR regularly, I ask that you consider supporting it.
Stephan: Very few seem to be paying attention to this, but I think it is very important. Debt is how Putin and the Russian oligarchs operating through Deutsche Bank, arranged for hundreds of millions of dollars of loans. Now those loans are beginning to come due. How do you think Trump will deal with that? His businesses are not doing well. If he loses the election what will he be able to do? Should he win, what do you think he will be willing to do. Stay tuned, I am paying attention.
Win or lose in November, one thing won’t change for Donald Trump: Over the next few years, his company must settle a series of whopping debts. Before the end of a theoretical second term, his company will have to refinance—or, in a far less likely scenario, pay off—nearly a half-billion dollars in loans linked to some of his most prized assets, including Trump Tower. These debts are maturing at a perilous moment for Trump, whose hotels and resorts have been plagued by declining revenues. And that was before the coronavirus pandemic pummeled the hospitality industry in general and the Trump Organization in particular, forcing the full or partial closure of most of its hotel and resort properties.
On financial disclosure forms, Trump has reported holding 14 loans on 12 properties. At least six of those loans, representing about $479 million in debt, are due over the next four years. Some are guaranteed by Trump himself, meaning a creditor could come after his personal—not corporate—assets if he defaults. If he holds onto the White House, the refinancing of these debts could […]
Stephan: I am writing this at 1 a.m. Pacific Time, and by the time you read it the polls in Kentucky will probably be experiencing another election disaster like the one that occurred the other day in Georgia. Jefferson County, has 767,000 people and only one polling place. You do the math.
The Republican Party does not like democracy, and is doing everything in its power to sabotage the election process. I was happy to learn some while back that Andy Beshear, the governor, and a Democrat, had expanded vote-by-mail, but not surprised that thousands who had requested ballots but had not received them, and will have to go to a polling place if they want to vote. By tonight we will know the reality.
I think it is reasonable to ask how the richest country in the world cannot seem to run an election?
Senate candidate Charles Booker votes at the Kentucky Expo Center. Credit: Pat McDonogh/AP
On Tuesday, Kentucky voters will determine which Democrat will challenge Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in November. Recent events have tightened the primary into a competitive race: In March, eight police officers barged into Breonna Taylor’s apartment in Louisville with a battering ram and fatally shot her. According to polling, voters outraged over Taylor’s killing and propelled by the national uprising against systemic racism have narrowed the gap between progressive Charles Booker, a Black state representative with a message about racial justice, and former Marine Amy McGrath, a moderate Democrat.
But the threat of the coronavirus pandemic, coupled with decisions by election officials to close thousands of polling places across Kentucky, leaves many of those newly energized voters in a bind.
After Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear delayed the primary from mid-May to June 23 in response to the coronavirus pandemic, he issued an executive order requiring the Board of Elections to expand voting by mail, permit early voting, and limit contact among voters […]
Jackson Diehl, Deputy Editorial Page Editor - The Washington Post
Stephan: I have been telling my readers since Trump was but a candidate that Putin needs Trump, as much as Trump needs Putin, and the oligarchs around him. The Russian economy is entirely oil and gas dependent. When was the last time you heard about anyone buying a Russian refrigerator, smartphone, or outboard motor? The country under Putin has become a kleptocratic shell. Jackson Diehl has it dead on.
Putin and Trump
Vladimir Putin is suffering through his worst year in two decades in power. The coronavirus is raging across Russia, which has reported more than half a million cases and 8,100 deaths and is suspected of hiding many more. The economy is crashing so steeply that the government failed to issue a monthly gross domestic product report in May for the first time in 15 years. Putin’s foolish launching of an oil price war with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made a bad recession worse.
Forced to postpone a referendum that would allow him to remain in office until 2036, Putin is now going ahead with it on July 1, and no doubt it will be rigged to produce the right result. But his poll ratings are the lowest they have been since he was installed as Boris Yeltsin’s prime minister and successor in 1999.
Worst of all, from Putin’s point of view, his vaunted foreign policy, aimed at restoring Russia’s global influence with bold gambits and deft maneuvering, has hit a […]
Stephan: Schwartz' first law of climate change: Whatever is cited it will occur more quickly than predicted, and the results will be much worse than anticipated. We are way past metaphors such as alarm bell, flashing lights, etc. We are headed to a catastrophe for which in most of the country we are utterly unprepared.
A past summer thaw in Verkhoyansk, a Siberian town in Russia. The town normally has an average high of 68 degrees in June but recorded a temp of 100.4 degrees on Saturday. Credit: Dean Conger/Corbis/Getty
A small town in Siberia reached a temperature of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday, which, if verified, would mark the hottest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic Circle.
The town of Verkhoyansk is one of the coldest towns on Earth — temperatures dropped to nearly 60 degrees below zero there this past November — and the average June high temperature is 68 degrees.
The Washington Post reports that while there are questions about the accuracy of the record temperature, a Saturday weather balloon launch that found unusually high temperatures in the […]
Stephan: Virginia Beach city County, VA, the largest city in the commonwealth, is politically split. In the last election it voted 44.8% Democrat and 48.4% Republican, with the remaining 6.8% voting Independent. I am publishing this story because Virginia Beach demonstrates how weird America's response to climate change has become. The projections about the effect of climate change, and the role of carbon emissions on the area are quite clear. About 30% of the county/city's landmass is likely to be submerged. So, faced with that, this article illustrates the hoops that those wanting to prepare for climate change have to go through when about half of the people don't even want to use the words, climate change. This country is going to have a very hard time, with a lot of unnecessary suffering, and death, because a large percentage of us don't live in a fact-based world.
Jon Baranowski and his family play in the flooded parking lot of the Virginia Beach Fishing Center in Virginia Beach, Va., as Hurricane Dorian passes through Hampton Roads on Friday, Sept. 6, 2019. Credit: Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot /AP
VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA — In Virginia Beach, sea level rise is a real and existential threat. And city officials aren’t afraid to say so.
For years, they have worked to develop complex — and expensive — initiatives they hope will safeguard the city from some of the most worrying flood projections.
In all of their recent preparations, however, city staff have steered clear of what most experts say is causing the tides to creep higher and higher. By design, they rarely, if ever, utter the words “climate change” — and they specifically avoid attributing any such change directly to humans.
“We don’t want to be stuck in the middle of arguments,” explained C.J. Bodnar, a city engineer who is helping lead Virginia Beach’s outreach efforts. “I can show you the gauge information to show you that, yes, sea level rise is happening. But I’m […]
Stephan: I wrote this, so will let it speak for itself.
I can’t speak for you, but as I watch day-by-day, the thing that stands out for me is that we are asking a relatively small group of men and women to both save us and put their lives on the line. And yet we are failing them in almost every way. What kind of mental space do you have to be in not to see this? I will never forget the images of ER personnel cutting holes in 50-gallon trashbags and putting them on because they didn’t have enough proper PPE gear. The only thing comparable is going into combat knowing you might be killed or crippled in some way that would dominate the rest of your life and doing it anyway. That is real heroism. I think there should be some kind of national recognition, something special.
But because of those images, and that reality, what I want to talk about is the failure of the system that put these people in that position. If you stress a system to its limits, its strengths, but also its faults and weaknesses quickly become very apparent. Every engineer and physician knows that. Can anyone doubt that the healthcare system in the United […]
Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Amy Julia Harris, Reporters - The New York Times
Stephan: This is what the illness profit system looks like for the elderly poor. This is yet another reason we must convert this obscene system to universal single payer healthcare. If you vote Republican this situation is what you are voting to continue.
Lakeview Terrace, a nursing home in Los Angeles, evicted RC Kendrick, an 88-year-old man with dementia. Credit: Andrew Cullen/The New York Times
On a chilly afternoon in April, Los Angeles police found an old, disoriented man crumpled on a Koreatown sidewalk.
Several days earlier, RC Kendrick, an 88-year-old with dementia, was living at Lakeview Terrace, a nursing home with a history of regulatory problems. His family had placed him there to make sure he got round-the-clock care after his condition deteriorated and he began disappearing for days at a time.
But on April 6, the nursing home deposited Mr. Kendrick at an unregulated boardinghouse — without bothering to inform his family. Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Kendrick was wandering the city alone.
According to three Lakeview employees, Mr. Kendrick’s ouster came as the nursing home was telling staff members to try to clear out less-profitable residents to make room for a new class of customers who would generate more revenue: patients with Covid-19.
More than any other institution in America, nursing homes have come to symbolize the deadly destruction of the coronavirus […]
Stephan: Republicans simply cannot govern, if by govern one means to create and implement public social policies that foster wellbeing. I don't know how many examples of their incompetence are required before people wake up to how their lives are degraded as a result of Republican governance.
Republican Governor Ron DeSantis identified the immigrant workforce as the ‘No 1’ source of outbreaks in Florida. He is a typical corrupt Republican incompetent. Credit: JLN Photography/Rex/Shutterstock
As new coronavirus cases surge across several southern states, Republican governors are looking to apportion blame – and resting upon some familiar targets.
In Florida, migrant Hispanic farm and construction workers are driving the huge uptick in Covid-19 infections, according to Governor Ron DeSantis, who has repeatedly identified the immigrant workforce as the “No 1” source of outbreaks in the Sunshine state.
Day laborers contracting the disease are “overwhelmingly Hispanic”, DeSantis said, and migrant in nature, adding that he had given a “heads-up” to health authorities in Georgia and Alabama about “what might be coming down the pike”.
DeSantis’s racially charged comments have been blasted as “shameful” by agricultural workers’ union leaders, who say the state has been lethargic in providing tests and resources to slow the spread. On Saturday, daily new cases in Florida surpassed 4,000 for the first […]
